


Fading Polaroids

by stunningepiphanies



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-13 15:16:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stunningepiphanies/pseuds/stunningepiphanies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short snapshots throughout John Winchester's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. December 1983

**December 1983**

It’s around mid-December when it really hits John that Mary’s never coming back. Up until now, he’s been half-expecting her to walk in the door, fine and whole, apologizing for being out so long.

That night, John drops Dean and Sammy off at Mike’s, all sad smiles and promises to be back before midnight. He disappears for a straight week. Mike finds him half-dead and all drunk in a dive bar a few miles away. He breaks John’s nose and tells him to man the fuck up, he’s got two little boys who need a dad, not a sorry sack of shit.

John begins investigating his wife’s death the next day.


	2. January 2006

**January 2006**

The bottom drops out of his stomach when he gets Sammy’s voicemail.

Dean’s dying, and there’s no way he can make it to his son’s bedside. They’d all die if he showed up, anyway, with all these fucking demons nipping at his heels. John allows himself the comfort of a few tears for a few moments, before he does what any parent would do in that situation: he moves fucking mountains.

He's already got wind of some real-deal faith healer, so he decides to go look at the operation with his own eyes. He’s not there but ten minutes in the tent when he realizes what’s really going on. The man’s playing with some real black magic here, but John can’t bring himself to care. He’d trade more than another person’s life to save his boy.

John calls Caleb and tells him to get the word out.


	3. June 1988

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: Allusions to suicide

**June 1988**

“Hey, Bobby?” John looks up from the Latin text he’s been painstakingly translating for the past five hours to address the other hunter across the table.

“What is it?”

John steals a glance at the couch, where his boys are curled up, dead asleep. He looks back to Bobby, dead serious expression on his face (but really, when doesn’t he look like that?). “You, ah…if anything happened to me, you’d look after the boys?”

Bobby’s suddenly suspicious. He eyes the other man intently, like he’s worried he might fall apart right then and there. “You plannin’ something, Winchester?”

John just snorts and takes a swig of his beer. “You really think I would?” he says, turning back to his work like the conversation never happened. He stares at the gun he keeps under his pillow longer than he usually does that night.


	4. March 1971

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fudging John's service record a little to serve my own nefarious purposes. :3c

**March 1971**

On their last date before he heads off for basic, Mary makes sure to slip him an envelope full of _something_. She tells him not to open it until he _really_ starts missing her.

It takes him about two weeks 'til he can't stand the curiosity anymore. Inside he finds two polaroids. In the first she's posed out on the hood of Liddy's big brother's Mustang, soaking wet and in a bikini she knows he loves. He's not sure if the girl or the car gets him more excited, but he's well acquainted with both and appreciates the thought she put into it.

He appreciates the second even more. This one has her stretched lazily on her back in bed, not a stitch on. It's the first time he's seen her completely naked, but he really can't complain about it. It serves its purpose well, lighting a flame in his gut so intense that his only possible choice is getting back to her alive so she can put it out. The promise is just too tangible and alluring to not get back and cash it in.

For the next two years, he clings to those photos as tightly as he can, through mud and jungles and well intentioned pranks that go sideways as soon as John gets a hold on them.

No one gets between John and his girl, they learn.


	5. Mom 1958-2006

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expecting Jossing, praying for Kripkeing. :|

Lucille Winchester was a stunning woman.

John remembers that, even decades after her death. She had these waves of near blackbrown hair, and those bright blue eyes that pierced right through you, made you tell all your secrets right then and there. He remembers, too, the night those vibrant blue eyes went dull, when it was clear his father wasn't coming back. Abandoned with a four year old, nothing but a house and some squirreled away money to her name. The way she cried, though, you'd think the man had died like Davey's daddy did, out in Korea.

(Not that little Johnny knew what that meant at the time. He would, though, fifteen years and a jungle later.)

John remembers how his mother practically dragged herself out to Kansas after he turned five. Her family was out there, she said, but she never seemed to really want to go. He didn't too, all of his friends were in Illinois and he was going to be in big kid school soon. Lucille used his own reluctance as her crutch, he realises now, an excuse to stay in the house her husband built. He still doesn't get it. It was so small.

John remembers how she brought Frank around when he was eight. Frank was cool and tough, and he taught him all about engines and cars. He was a Marine, too, and he would show off his scars and tattoos until Lucille deemed it rude and inappropriate. John liked the man, loved him even, but he was never Dad. No one could ever be dad.

John remembers how his mother would never hear an unkind word about her first husband. Frank got slapped, John got grounded, even her brothers got the cold shoulder until they caved and aplogized. Henry Winchester was a saint in her eyes and a good, good man. Both Frank and John hated it, but they let her be.

John remembers getting news of the cancer when he was still in basic. Nothing they could do, Frank said, they just had to wait it out. He remembers every letter from home was terror until it was opened, like Schrodinger's heartache. The News never came though. John got the blessing of seeing her off in the very end. He remembers how her waves of hair were dull and limp in the end, her skin was sallow and her body shriveled, but god, those _eyes_. Those eyes were sharp as a hawk until the close.

John remembers, every year since '73.


End file.
